Throughout the Old Covenant times, circumcision was a sign of being in covenant with God and being part of the covenant community of his people Israel. The concept is central in the OT. Circumcision of heart is an important concept in the entire Bible. So, I began to wonder, why circumcision as the sign of that covenant? Why is it so important? What does it symbolize? What truths can we learn from this ancient rite so central to Israel’s identity and commanded by the Creator of the universe? Here are some of my thoughts.
Consecration of sexuality and lineage:
God chose the organ of reproduction for Circumcision. That must be significant. Sex was given so that man and woman could reproduce and multiply the image of God on earth. Circumcision is a sign that man was giving his sexual drive to God for God’s purposes and glory, and so was a consecration of the act of procreation to God, and a consecration of his lineage to God, in order that God’s glory, through mankind, might cover the earth as the waters cover the seas.
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…”
Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Consecration of life
Jacob refers to Reuben as the “firstfruits of my strength.” Proverbs calls prostitution giving “your strength to women.”
Genesis 49:3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
Proverbs 31:3 Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.
So sex was also seen as an expression of one’s vitality, one’s life. Circumcision is a consecration of our life.
“Bridegroom of Blood to me”
The issue of circumcision and consecration brings to mind one of the most difficult and mysterious passages in the Bible, namely the story of the Lord threatening to kill Moses and Moses’ wife, Zipporah, saving his life by circumcising their son. Here’s the story…
Exodus 4:19 And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” 20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.
22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”
24 At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched his feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
The context is God saying he’s going to put the firstborn of Egypt to death. Those who refused to obey God would loose their firstborn son.
But Moses himself had not obeyed God, though he was to be the one through him God delivered Israel and gave the law to his people. According to God’s command to Abraham, those not circumcised would be “cut off.”
Genesis 17:14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Moses had not obeyed God and he was going to “cut off” Moses for his disobedience. Zipporah, apparently through prophetic insight, saw what was happening and quickly acted. The act was like a sacrifice, and the touching of Moses was a blood cleansing.
But why a “bridegroom of blood.” Through circumcision the male was brought into the covenant and symbolically made right with God. When he sexually united with his wife and they became one, she was kept pure through his purity, she was being kept in the circle of the covenant community. Moses was apparently circumcised by his parents (they kept him 3 months before putting him in the basket in the Nile, and sons were circumcised on the 8th day after birth). So Zipporah was reminding Moses that he had appropriately been a bridegroom of blood to her, and he had to obedient carry out God’s command on his son even as Moses’ own parents had obeyed the Lord. Moses needed to consecrate his son to the Lord and thereby show his own faithfulness to God’s command.
Some think Zipporah laid the foreskin at the feet of the Lord rather than at the feet of Moses. The text just says “touched his feet” and doesn’t specify whose feet, and immediately afterwards the text says “so he let him alone” where “he” clearly refers to the Lord. So grammatically and contextually this is a real possibility. If this is the case she would have, in some way, seen herself as submitting to the Lord as HIS bride, perhaps prophetically recognizing the marriage of Christ and his Church made possible through his death on the cross and the “putting off of the flesh” through the crucifixion. An intriguing possibility.
Who did the Lord try to put to death? The text just says “put him to death” so it could have been Moses or his son. But nothing in the text clearly mentions his son up to this point (the reference to “firstborn son” in the preceding verse would be an obscure antecedent for any reader), so Moses is almost certainly the one the Lord sought to put to death.
Why did Zipporah do the circumcision? Because the Lord had Moses in a death grip (much as he did when wrestling with Jacob) and only “released” him after the circumcision was complete.
Moses had two sons, both of whom were with him at this time. Which one was uncircumcised? Probably the younger one. Why? The Midianite practice was to circumcised at puberty. Possibly Moses was trying to honor the practice of his wife’s family, and his older son had already passed puberty and been circumcised. His younger son hadn’t reached puberty and so remained uncircumcised. Moses inappropriately put the desire to please his wife (and perhaps his father-in-law) above the desire to obey and please God. The deliver of God’s people and the future lawgiver had to himself keep the law.
The Growth of the Covenant Community is by faith not by human effort
God in creation provided an unnecessary piece of flesh on the organ of procreation that had no impact on reproduction. Why? So that it could be removed as a symbol of cutting away the flesh. For instance, Abraham tried to bring about the promise of God that he would be a great nation through human effort. Ishmael was born through Abraham’s human effort, a great mistake. Isaac was born by faith and by the promise and power of God. When we try to do things in the flesh we get Ishmaels not Isaacs. The spread of the Kingdom will not come by fleshly effort, we need to put off the flesh and walk by faith and in the Spirit. Reproduction of the covenant community isn’t by physical reproduction but by faith reproduction.
Romans 2:28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
We can have kids, but we must instill faith in them, an bring them into the new creation.
This interpretation is consistent with the OT and NT. True Circumcision has to do with a change of heart (“putting of the foreskins of your heart”). In Christ we die to fleshly effort. Only then can we truly “be fruitful and multiply.” Apart from him we can do nothing, we remain impotent spiritually.
We dare not depend on human effort to grow the church. Christ will grow his Church. He will use us, but it will be Christ in us, not our human effort, that will be effective!
Putting away sin, death to flesh:
Because circumcision of heart is mentioned repeatedly in both the OT and NT, this concept must be significant in understanding the deeper meaning of circumcision.
Leviticus 26:40 “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,
Deuteronomy 10:16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
Deuteronomy 30:6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”
Jeremiah 9:26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”
Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
Romans 2:29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
We see from the prophets and Paul that circumcision was a symbol of putting away sin or the flesh. Uncircumcision represented a lack of purity, a lack of holiness. If one doesn’t “cut off” the flesh that person will be “cut off” from God’s people, the curse for sin.
Genesis 17:14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Jesus bore that curse for us on the cross; he was “cut off” by God for our sake. Our flesh is put to death as we are united with Christ. Thus our flesh is put to death, rendered inoperative. The sin and rebellion of flesh is removed from our hearts (interestingly, some Jewish Rabbis of the past note that the circumcised organ has the shape of a heart). This is the giving of a new heart. The foreskin was an unnecessary portion of flesh that could be symbolically cut away as our old nature must be cut off, put to death and a new heart given in Christ.
Conclusion
Let us circumcise our hearts that we might be useful to God and so that, through us, his Kingdom might advance as spiritual children are born anew by the Spirit into Christ. Only as we recognize that we have been crucified with Christ, and so learn to walk by the Spirit – to live by the life of Christ within us – will we be fruitful in our lives and in our ministries.
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